Embraced in a warm soft existence, as if sleeping on clouds. The lull dragging Newt further in as he descends deeper into unconsciousness.
*Click
‘Hm?’ Newt confusedly tilts his head at the sudden unknown noise.
*BANG
The reverberation echoing in his ears as his heart races, then he remembers.
Pistol aiming down at his head, the cold but sympathetic gaze of the stranger, followed by the firing of his weapon.
Heart pounding in his head, unable to hear anything but the thrums of his chest and the echoing and replaying of the chilling noise produced from the firearm.
The bullet penetrating his skin and skull as the pain spreads through his body, ripping through his brain before…
“*Waaahhhh!”
The cries of a newborn surprising him so much he breaks out of his mind, returning to the world of consciousness.
‘Wait, return? Shouldn’t I be dead?’ However, before he can continue down that train of thought he is interrupted, not from any outside elements, but instead his own mind.
‘No, I’m alive.’
The thought begins to send energy through his body, giving him confidence, he was alive? Yes, that had to be the case!
Not noticing the oddity at which his faith in those thoughts had, he begins thinking.
‘Perhaps… Perhaps everything was just a bad dream?’
‘No, everything that occurred did happen.’
His chain of thought interrupted again, it’s as if a clone of his own mind was answering his questions.
He knew it wasn’t any foreign thoughts, but how? Why was he so confident that was the case?
‘Whatever, it doesn’t matter right now. If it wasn’t a dream and I’m alive, then reincarnation?’
The thought immediately reaffirmed by his mind once again.
‘Weird.’
Struggling to open his eyes, he briefly sees the roof of whatever room he was in.
‘Nothing out of the ordinary yet.’
Trying to push himself up his hands slip, and he falls back onto his back.
Pausing for a moment he looks at his hands, a bit chubby but otherwise, nothing of note. Pale skin, all four limbs functioning, nothing different from his previous life.
Though he was fine with that, familiarity gave him a sense of comfort at the similarity between his lives, something he desperately needed due to his circumstances.
This doesn’t last long as he begins falling into worry as his situation begins to settle in his mind. Death, reincarnation, potentially never meeting Eris again.
He didn’t know how much time had passed since his death, perhaps everyone he ever knew was dead… The thoughts plaguing his mind hit a bit of a stop as he begins to realize something.
‘Outside of Eris, what was so bad about this?’
Newt questions internally, creating a list in his mind.
‘Cons: Inability to see Eris…Anything…Wait, what are the odds I’m in an entirely different world from earth?’ Pausing for a moment and opening his eyes again as he begins scanning the room for any modern technology, only noticing very simple machinery and a distinct lack of anything that advanced technologically wise.
‘Bad, bad. The chances of either being reincarnated either in the distant past or in another world with lacking technology has drastically increased. Not to mention the crib I’m in…’ He looks down at his cradle, noticing its design being rudimentary and the cloth being rough, and the inside of his pillow stuffed with feathers.
Sighing his suspicion becoming more and more likely, though the feathers in the pillows suggest something.
‘Noble or rich background?’
It was intriguing but, in the end, all of this was mere suspicions and theories, at least they were entertaining to a degree.
Eventually, however, Newt ran out of things to think about, the boredom becoming increasingly frustrating, Newt decides to attempt walking.
The result being, a total failure as he could barely even hold onto his crib let alone keep himself upright.
Met with the overwhelming failure, he decides to do the only sensible thing. Sleep.
Grumbling to himself Newt begins to get comfortable, as he does, footsteps echo out throughout the house as two figures enter his view.
A woman with pitch black hair and hazel eyes and a tall man with brown hair and blue eyes glaring at the woman.
Bickering back and forth with a language unknown to Newt, he could tell things were getting heated with how red the man’s face was getting and the pissed off expression from the women.
Luckily, or unluckily depending on the perspective, a certain smell begins blasting out from Newt’s lower half that quickly becomes known as Newt begins uncontrollably crying.
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The absolute sadness and upset that washed over him feeling as if drowned in an endless sorrow.
Newt’s conscious thoughts fighting an unwinnable battle to keep sanity and control over his erupting emotions.
Through the corner in his eye, he sees that the duo had noticed what had occurred and had been, unbeknownst to Newt, fighting again over who should change him, though it didn’t last long as the women walks out with both middle fingers pointed out ignoring the man as he sighs in deep frustration.
Eventually, Newt’s rudimentary diaper was changed, and Newt had stopped crying, he begins examining the diaper he was wearing before overwhelming drowsiness overcomes him and he passes out. (A/N: 1)
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1 Year later.
The black-haired woman came back numerous times to visit, though in most cases she was just occasionally checking in on Newt every now and then as she worked somewhere else in the room, on what Newt didn’t know.
Though one day she seemed to finish one of the things she was working on and brought it over to Newt. A necklace she wrapped around his small chubby neck.
As time went on, Newt began picking up the language spoken by the two, at a noticeably faster rate than before he was given the necklace, he wasn’t quite sure why.
However he had two theories on the matter.
The first was that his brain was developing and the fog in his mind had begun to clear, he could think more clearly and quickly, making connections between words, allowing him to pick up the language faster.
The second was instead, that the necklace was somehow helping his comprehension of the language, drastically increasing his learning speed.
As absurd as the latter theory was, Newt eventually gave in and accepted it was most likely both.
Which leads to one of two conclusions, Earth had wizards, or he wasn’t on Earth, and through the passage of time, the more confident his certainty on being in a different world.
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Newt said his first words to his two parental figures with what he had figured out was the foreign language equivalent of ‘Mama’ and ‘Dada’. Which turns out, wasn’t the best idea.
‘Dada’ scrunching his face in disgust and ‘Mama’ gagging.
‘Well fuck you too!’
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After that Newt was desperately told to refer to ‘Mama’ as Cynthia, and ‘Dada’ was apparently fine with the name.
Well, that would be the case, though it took a while to figure out Cynthia’s name as Cynthia kept trying to get him to call her the equivalent of Master or Teacher, and Dad kept referring to her, as Newt later found out, ‘Bitch’.
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Newt started speaking full spoken sentences at the age of 14 months old. This was a joyous occasion from the perspective of Cynthia, Paris however, had a look of sheer horror plastered on his face, Newt didn’t end up seeing him until a couple days later in which Cynthia took care of him.
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Weirdly enough, once Newt had gotten a rudimentary grasp on the language, he confirmed what his own name was, and it was highly suspicious.
‘Newt’
The same name as his previous life, either it was through some cosmic coincidence bordering on impossible, or someone had arranged it to be the case.
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“Cynthia, I've always wondered, what are you always working on?” A young Newt asks, having been curious since the first time he saw her, the necklace he was given only strengthening this interest.
“Hm? Oh, well if you want to know so badly then I’ll indulge you. She answers with very apparent pride.
“This, or more accurately everything I work on, is what I have called “Runecraft”, Magi-Craft would have been an apt name but it was taken by some pricks who failed in what I achieved.” She huffs a little but quickly her chest swells up with pride as she begins to explain.
“Runecraft is the culmination of all my work and studies, the combination of Technology and Magic!” boasting with a smug expression as she waited for his reaction.
Which was, nothing.
He had no idea the significance nor the difficulty involved in that task, so why should he care?
Cynthia quickly came to an understanding of this and tried to explain in further detail.
“… I failed to explain some parts so it only makes sense you wouldn’t be as impressed as others… Let’s start at the basics, Magic.” She says holding her palm up as a blue light begins to illuminate, gradually taking the form of a circle with symbols and lines Newt couldn’t quite understand.
A small droplet of water began forming above the circle.
“Magic is the system in which we utilize Mana to affect the material world. But Magic, to put it simply, comes with a few drawbacks that Mages have had to try and circumvent. This has been done before in a few different forms but in majority of such ‘solutions’ have been either expensive, rudimentary providing only a minor improvement to the standard, or have been entirely theoretical.
And that is where I come in, Runecraft is the end result of trying to circumvent a few key issues whilst being cost effective, relative to pretty much all relevant alternatives, and having diverse capabilities with a near limitless potential decided only by material and skill!” Cynthia flaunts blatantly to Newt who was still processing said information.
“…That seems incredible.” Newt nods his head a few times with a expressionless face, to the chagrin of Cynthia.
“Indeed, by then why aren’t you that impressed?” Cynthia asks, half in curiosity and half in annoyance.
“What?”
“Why aren’t you showing much of a reaction, no astonishment on your face, no praise nothing.”
Newt gives her a incredulous gaze to Cynthia before explaining.
“Take this from my perspective, something you know nothing about has solved multiple major problems. It’s incredible sure, but that’s it, I can see the pond you’ve made, but the only thing in sight is the surface.”
Cynthia pauses for a moment before facepalming and apologizing, “Sorry kid, I sometimes forget that you are, well, a kid, a lot of this is second nature to me and others where I grew up, I subconsciously assumed you had as well despite logic.”
“It’s fine, though I have a… Request.” Newt asks, a little hesitant.
“Spit it out.”
“Can you teach me Magic?”
“Hah! Maybe if you’re older-“
“No!” A new voice enters the discussion as Paris, Newt’s father, slams the door open with vigor, shouting.
“I’m NOT letting my son become like you-“
“'You' what? Hm? Demons? Is that what you think your wife was? A demon?” Cynthia snaps back at Paris.
“…Don’t bring her into this!”
Unbeknownst to both, the moment Paris had entered, Newt had begun shaking, trembling like prey in the presence of a beast.
His heart beating louder and louder, thump thump thump thump, each pump of blood making him jittery, unable to escape his mind as he begins to hyperventilate, chest tightening, nausea setting in as he collapse to the ground.
The noise entirely muffled by the argument occurring nearby.
Newt felt as if his head was banging, a phantom pain began spreading from the center of his forehead.
He could almost see the haunting memory play out in front of him, the clicking of the pins of a lock being picked, the turning of a doorknob, a bullet being fired.
“Oh? And why is that? Head too far up the church’s ass to question why she never told you? Or are you still in denial about whether or not she was a ‘demon’? Because I will tell you right now if needed.” Cynthia coldly responds as she seethes in anger at the man.
Paris, however, doesn’t respond, his fists clenched so hard his nails pierce the skin.
He slowly turns his head with an unnerving lax, the image of the man moving calmly whilst biting his lip and his nails finding crimson liquid dripping down his hands.
Newt being only partially aware of what was occurring as the shock of his father grabbing him by the shoulder snaps him to reality
“Son. I’ll tell you this once.” Paris’s eyes boring holes into Newt with a level of tenseness never seen in him.
“If you practice that… ‘Magic’” He spat out with rage before continuing, “You will no longer be my son. Are we clear?”
His authoritative voice causing Newt’s body to shake in fear as he instinctively responded. “Y-yes f-father.”
“Good.”
Paris begins walking out, halting for a brief moment to glare at Cynthia for a few seconds that lasted longer than eternity to Newt.
*Ka-Chunk
The door had closed behind Paris as he left, leaving the women and shivering child alone in the room.